Supply Side: The “Organizing for Independence” Concept

We enroll the Last girl in an Apne Aap network with the expectation that she gains her Ten Assets over a period of three to five years. The Ten Assets are:

1. Safe Space

2. Education

3. Self-confidence

4. Political power

5. Government authorised IDs

6. Government subsidies like low-cost food, housing,

health care and loans

7. Legal support to file police complaints and testify in court

8.Savings and bank accounts

9. Livelihood linkages like vocational training, markets, jobs

10. Nine friends or membership of a self-empowerment group.

The Assets either reduce her risk of being trafficked or create an exit strategy from prostitution by reducing her dependency on the brothel system through creating choices other than prostitution. Once a girl gains all Ten Assets, she gets ten on ten. This has a multiplier effect, as she then influences and enrolls other girls to gain the ten assets. Also, as part of the Apne Aap network and of the smaller self-empowerment groups, she scales up the work by campaigning individually and collectively for changes in laws and policies that affect hundreds of thousands of her sisters. We call this the 10 X 10 approach. 20 % of our work is to create exit strategies for girls and women who are victims of prostitution. This is traditionally known as rehabilitation and reintegration. 80 % of our work strives to prevent inter-generational prostitution among the daughters of women in prostitution, as well as the girls and young women trapped in caste communities. [Many of these castes were formerly nomadic groups labeled as Criminal Tribes by the British. Some examples are Nats, Bediyas, Sansis, and Kanjars. Read more about our Organizing for Independence Concept.]